Here, once again, is our boo-rific compilation of Halloween events, activities and goings on around Ventura County and surrounding areas for the 2018 Halloween season! Spooky houses, pumpkin patches, trick or treating, carnivals, community events, storytelling and more!

The star of the Halloween show is the pumpkin. According to my favorite resource Wikipedia, the name pumpkin originated from the Greek word pepon ("large melon"). The French called it pompom. The British changed it to pumpion. Then American colonists changed it to pumpkin. Why? Heck, I dunno.

Pumpkins are gourd-like squashes and technically are a fruit. They can range in size from 1 lb to 1,000 lbs.

But who cares about all that...what we REALLY want to know is, where are the pumpkin patches in Ventura County and surrounding areas!? Well, here are some choices...but make sure to call before you go for hours, etc.

Prancer's Pumpkin Village will be opening on Sat, September 30th through October from 10am to 9pm weekdays and 9am to 9pm weekends at 3075 Johnson Drive in Ventura (adjacent to the 101 freeway). In addition to an array of pumpkins, they offer pony rides, bouncers, hay maze, petting zoo and other activities. Visit prancersvillage.com.

The Santa Paula Rotary's Pumpkin Patch at the Limoneira Ranch in Santa Paula will be open every weekend in October 2018, starting the 6th, from 10am to 5pm. Gigantic corn MaiZe, hay wagon rides, the infamous "Pumpkin Chucker" and more on hand. $6 admission.

A Little Further Away:

Pumpkins no longer in 2018:

Boccali Ranch Pumpkin Patch sadly reports that it will not be open for the 2018 holiday season. The Thomas Fire destroyed both of it haunted hayride trailers and because of the drought does not have adequate water available to grow pumpkins this year. www.boccalis.com/pumpkinpatch.html

At Halloween, many of us anticipate massive stockpiles of sugary sweets in our households.

As an alternative to consuming all this candy, consider donating it to our troops overseas. You may think, do we really want to send all that junk food to throughout the world? Sure! Everyone enjoys a treat! And truth be told, the troops themselves don't eat all this candy...much of it they enjoy sharing in the communities they patrol.

The Halloween Candy Buy-Back Program has partnered with Operation Gratitude and local dental practices to channel your candy stockpile to our troops. Local dentists "buy" back Halloween candy in exchange for cash or other items. The candy is shipped to Operation Gratitude and other U.S. Military support groups and in turn it is sent overseas, to children of deployed service members, wounded warriors, veterans and first responders.

There are nearly a number of local Ventura County dental practices participating in this program. Just visit www.halloweencandybuyback.com and enter your zip code for these or other locations throughout the L.A./Ventura County area.

Each practice has their own buy-back incentives. so make sure to call to learn more about their program and related time frames (usually the first several days after Halloween).

The Fall Harvest Festival at Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark is a perennial "MUST DO" activity for anyone with kids in Ventura County. With thousands of pumpkins, weekend themed entertainment during the month of October, tractor rides, a large corn maze, games and fun activities and all of the other great things the farm has to offer, it is hard not to stop by. Admission on weekends is $15 at the ga

A trebuchet is a catapult that works by using the energy of a raised counterweight to throw a projectile. It was popular in medieval times for hurling large stones and missiles. It became obsolete in the 15th century with the introduction of gunpowder.

However, in recent years, the Pumpkin Chucker at the Faulkner Farm Pumpkin Patch in Santa Paula has brought this ancient projectile thrower back into the spotlight!

For $5 (or 3 for $10), visitors to the pumpkin patch can select a small pumpkin that is carefully placed into a launch position on the Pumpkin Chucker, ring the Pumpkin Chucker bell, then pull the rope that triggers a 500 lb counterweight that projects the pumpkin 200 feet away towards a target.

In our recent visit, I was surprised to experience about a 45 minute wait for the Pumpkin Chucker! But that didn't seem to bother anyone, as everyone enjoyed watching the airborne pumpkins and cheering as they came close to the target. It was so popular in fact that I think this could be a great year-round business opportunity...flinging pumpkins, watermelons, canteloupes and other worthy produce!

Pumpkin commencing its 200 foot flight from the Pumpkin Chucker

The Faulkner Farm Pumpkin Patch, run by the Rotary Club of Santa Paula since 2007, is typically open on weekends in October each year. Learn more at www.faulknerfarmpumpkinpatch.com.

Pumpkin Chucker target area and post-flight remnants of pumpkins at Faulkner Farm

According to the anonymous experts at Wikipedia, the earliest known mention of the term "trick or treat" was in 1927.

Trick or treating really started becoming popular after World War II in the late 1940s and continued growing in the 1950s. It was first depicted in a Peanuts comic strip in 1951 and in 1952 was portrayed for the first time on screen in the Disney 1952 cartoon Trick or Treat, featuring Donald Duck and his nephews, Huey, Duey and Louie.

Today there is a trend towards more and more trick or treating "events" around town as an alterative to traditional house-to-house trick or treating.

HALLOWEEN 2012 IS OVER! :< SEE YOU BACK HERE IN OCTOBER 2013!!

We've compiled a list of such events at THIS LINK but here is a summary (of 2012 events....see you next year for the 2013 update!).